


anywhere i go (there you are)

by thespacenico



Series: klancemas 2018 [24]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuddling, First Kiss, M/M, Puzzles, The Letter, another first may occur... hm...., broganes, cozy!!, hand-holding, hot dog discourse, if you come after me about that in the comments i WILL snipe you, keith draws lance a new shark, lance teaches allura the art of snowmen, mayhaps lance has a gift of sorts, more team bonding, they watch it's a wonderful life which is me projecting bc my fam watches it every year, ugh i don't wanna spoil in the tags but like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-06 17:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespacenico/pseuds/thespacenico
Summary: klancemas day 24: by the fire





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prepare for copious amounts of dashes and hyphens (they are. excessive but i have no shame)

December twenty-fourth.

The day before Christmas.

Christmas Eve.

It’s strange to think about how quickly the month has flown by. Keith almost feels like it was only yesterday that they were all packed together in Hunk’s car listening to Mariah Carey’s _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ on repeat and driving up into the mountains to see Adam and Shiro. And yet, it’s just as strange to think about how he and Lance have only been together—officially—for just over a week, when it feels like it’s been so much longer.

He knows that in the grand scheme of things, it’s because not all that much has actually changed. It’s still _them,_ just. More... them. Keith still isn’t the best at words. But it makes him wonder exactly how long he’s felt this way, and exactly why it took so long for all these feelings to bubble up to the surface, loud and fierce and overwhelming and, honestly? Really, really scary.

“Maybe you’ve always felt it,” Shiro points out, when Keith comes into his room and flops onto the bed and shoves a pillow over his face. “You just didn’t recognize it at first because you didn’t know what it was. Not to mention the fact that we were all a bit preoccupied with an intergalactic space war, but that’s besides the point.”

Keith groans. “Then how do I know that I actually—you know.” He pushes the pillow away and sighs frustratedly as Shiro shoots him a sympathetic look from where he’s stuffing clean sweaters into the dresser. “If I’ve never felt like this about anyone, then how do I know that’s what it is?”

He’s too wrapped up in his thoughts to even bother pretending to be annoyed when Shiro purposely plops down onto the mattress beside him, making him bounce a little from the impact. “I can’t tell you _how_ you know, Keith. You just—know.”

“Gee, thanks,” Keith says dryly. “Solid advice.”

Shiro leans back on his elbow to look down at him, unperturbed. “The fact that you’re thinking about it so much is a pretty good indicator,” he says softly. Keith glances up at him, and he smiles gently. “So something tells me you already know.”

Keith’s chest aches. “Yeah,” he breathes.

It’s not that things are awkward, after yesterday. But it feels like there’s a sort of distance between them that neither of them is sure how to cross. Lance suddenly seems that much more careful around him, a bit less touchy and a bit more restrained. Part of Keith wonders if he needs to try to make up for it in some way, as if that would balance them out and make things feel normal again. Only, that’s hard to do when he’s never been the best at expressing his feelings in the first place.

Most of the day passes by relatively uneventfully. Everyone lounges around and reads and plays games and generally enjoys being able to be lazy after breakfast. They watch _It’s A Wonderful Life_ in the movie room and eat popcorn and candy for lunch, and during the credits Lance and Keith take turns trying to throw M&M’s into Pidge’s mouth until Lance accidentally knocks the bag over and Adam makes them pick up every single spilled piece of candy.

“Did you sleep okay last night?” Keith asks later, sitting on the floor of Lance’s room and drawing in his lap while Lance sits on the bed behind him and braids his hair.

Lance stalls for a moment, kicking his feet a little on either side of Keith. “I had a nightmare,” he admits eventually, and Keith is about to get onto him for breaking his promise before he continues, voice going soft in the rare way it does when he’s shy. “But I went back to sleep just fine. It was—I felt better just knowing I could come over here if I wanted to.”

Keith smiles a tiny, relieved but satisfied smile. “Good.” He puts a few more finishing touches on his picture and holds it up for Lance to see. “For you.”

Lance takes one look at it and bursts into laughter. Keith decides happy sharks aren’t so bad after all.

Pidge asks them to do a puzzle with her. They dump the pieces out on the floor in her room and sprawl on their stomachs on the wood and work on the puzzle until Hunk and Allura come in and they somehow all get into an argument about whether or not a hot dog counts as a sandwich, which ends up with Pidge and Keith going back and forth.

“By definition—” Pidge keeps trying to say.

“By definition it is _not_ a sandwich!” Keith cries, and at this point Lance is laughing too hard to contribute to the conversation, Hunk can’t be bothered to care very much, and Allura simply finds the entire ordeal to be very amusing. “A sandwich has two pieces of bread! Two!”

“You can eat a hot dog on two pieces of bread!”

“In what universe would you eat a hot dog on two pieces of bread, Pidge!”

“What if you break your hot dog bun in half—”

“Then you broke your singular piece of bread in half!” Keith throws his hands in the air, a few puzzle pieces that are stuck to his arm falling back to the floor and sending Lance into another fit of giggles. “You have two halves of one piece of bread!”

“You sound like you’ve had this conversation before,” Allura notes, head tilted and leaning back on her hands from Pidge’s bed.

Shiro appears in the doorway, probably attracted by all of the yelling back and forth. “Did I hear someone say that hot dogs are sandwiches?”

Keith drops his head to the floor with a loud thump and a groan, Pidge grins, and Lance still can’t stop laughing.

Lance and Allura go outside before it gets too dark so Lance can show her how to make a snowman. Keith sits on the porch steps and watches and tries not to laugh when Lance accidentally drops the second section of his snowman and has to start a new one. Pidge stumbles through the front door after a while, all but swallowed up by her coat as she plops down on the steps next to Keith and promptly drops her head against his arm. “Nature is the worst,” she grumbles.

Keith huffs a laugh. “I thought you liked Olkarion.”

“Special case,” she says, shivering against a small gust of winter wind and hunching her shoulders. “It was warm. And they had cool stuff.”

“Snow is cool,” Keith offers, brushing his hand over the light layer of snow settled beside him and watching it fall quietly over the edge of the deck.

Pidge makes a noise between a laugh and a groan. “Ugh, please, I hear plenty of bad puns from your boyfriend in a day.”

Keith wouldn’t even have realized that he had just made a pun if she hadn’t said that, but that’s besides the point. “If I have to put up with them, then so do you.”

“I’ve been putting up with them for _way_ longer than you have,” Pidge snorts, although she doesn’t quite cover up the fondness in her voice as well as she probably intended.

Lance’s laughter floats across the yard and Keith glances over to look at where he and Allura are standing in front of their newly constructed snowman, mostly obscuring his view. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Pidge makes a noncommittal sound and halfway shrugs, tucking her chin underneath the collar of her coat. They’re quiet for a while as they continue to watch Lance and Allura work on their snowman. Lance occasionally tosses a look over his shoulder and smiles brightly before turning away and missing the way Keith smiles back every time. Pidge shivers again against another gust of wind and maybe unconsciously presses a bit closer to Keith as a result.

“Will you come see Matt when we go back?” she asks, a bit suddenly.

Keith’s brain takes an extra second to process. He blinks, and then turns a little to look down at her. “What?”

She shuffles her feet a little on the next step, dipping the toes of her boots into the snow and staring determinedly ahead. “When we go back,” she repeats. “You should come see Matt.” She pauses, and her gaze falls down to her feet. “Lance could come too. And Adam and Shiro, and everyone, really. I just—think he’d like to see you.”

Keith looks at her for a little longer. Pidge shuffles her feet some more. He taps his fingers on his knees. “Okay.”

Pidge lets out a little breath, sounding almost relieved. “Okay.”

“Keith! Pidge!” They both look up at the sound of Lance’s voice to see him and Allura on either side of their snowman, looking very much proud of their work. “Please welcome Sven to the family.”

Pidge squints. “You mean Shiro’s twin from that one alternate reality?”

“I mean the man who saved my _life_ from that one alternate reality,” Lance corrects, clutching a hand to his heart.

“So the guy from that one alternate reality who saved your life and also happens to be Shiro’s twin,” Keith concludes flatly, and Allura chuckles as Lance pouts.

“Did anyone ever tell him about that?”

Pidge shrugs. “Everything blends together at this point.”

The door opens and Shiro’s head appears. “Dinner’s ready, kiddos.”

“This is why you have white hair,” Keith mutters under his breath, and Shiro flicks his head and laughs when Keith chases him back inside.

Everyone wraps their gifts after dinner to be put under the tree. Keith asks Allura to wrap Lance’s gift for him after trying and failing twice to make it look presentable and she only teases him a little bit. Lance reappears from his room wearing Keith’s hoodie, and it’s either that or the way he shoots a big smile in his direction that makes Keith’s heart flip the way it always does.

Hunk and Pidge are helping Shiro start a fire when everyone wanders back downstairs. Adam makes hot chocolate again—Keith uses up the rest of the whipped cream, Allura wins the mini chubby bunny contest against both Hunk and Lance, and Pidge documents the entire thing.

They sit around in the living room for a while and Shiro tells stories about when he was a cadet at the Garrison and Adam sighs (and smiles) a lot. Lance and Keith huddle together on the floor near the fireplace and Lance steals a blanket from the couch to share even though they’re already plenty warm, so Keith is pretty sure it’s just an excuse to hold his hand. Not that he minds.

Although, the way it makes his heart skip a couple beats the same way it did the first time they held hands makes it impossible for him not to think about the letter still sitting unread in the pocket of his sweats. Something that only seems to grow heavier and heavier the later it gets.

It’s not even his fault. He and Lance haven’t been _really_ alone all day, door always open and someone always just within earshot. So even if he’d managed to summon the courage to finally hand it over, he wouldn’t have had the chance to do it without everyone else sticking their noses in their business. Not that he particularly minds the lack of privacy so far, because it’s given him an excuse to hold onto the letter which is fine because he—still hasn’t quite worked up the courage to hand it over.

Maybe he’s overthinking, but he can’t stop coming back to the kiss—or, the lack thereof—in the library yesterday. They haven’t talked about it, and Keith doesn’t even know if it’s something that needs to be talked about or if he’s just blowing things way out of proportion. It’s just that Lance had seemed so… uncomfortable, almost, after it all happened, and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know if he _wants_ to know why.

But he wants to give him the letter. It’s just a matter of time.

Shiro suggests that they call it a night after Pidge falls asleep against Allura’s side. Allura nudges Pidge awake and Adam gathers the last couple of mugs in the room to take into the kitchen while everyone stands from the couches, yawning and stretching a bit. Keith glances over at Lance, who tightens his grip slightly on Keith’s hand under the blanket, and Keith feels both a wave of relief and nervous anticipation because that means he wants to stay too and once everyone else leaves, they’ll finally be alone.

Allura shoots a smile their way before following Hunk and Pidge up the stairs. Shiro waits for Adam at the bottom of the steps, who just sighs at them when he reemerges from the kitchen despite the very knowing look he directs at Keith. “Don’t stay up too late,” he says, and then Shiro smiles at them and disappears upstairs with Adam.

They sit quietly for a while, listening to the sounds of the fire still crackling in the fireplace and watching the glow of the flames mix with the lights from the Christmas tree on the other side of the room. Keith distantly finds himself slipping his other hand into his pocket, playing idly with the corners of the letter.

 _It’s just you and him,_ he thinks. _Nothing’s stopping you._

 _Nothing except for yourself,_ says his brain, a bit too sarcastically for Keith’s liking.

He’s very aware Lance’s fingers laced with his, and the feeling of their arms pressed together and the warmth that’s probably mostly from the fire and the blanket but that he can’t help but contribute completely to Lance. It seems like he’s contributing everything to Lance these days. Like his loss of brain function and his inability to breathe properly and his borderline arrhythmia whenever he’s around.

Keith bites his lip and runs a finger over the edge of the letter. He could wait until tomorrow. Christmas would be a great time to tell Lance exactly how he feels. Only, in the (hopefully) unlikely scenario that this is an awful idea and it all goes terribly, horribly wrong, he’d rather get it over with now instead of risk ruining Lance’s Christmas.

 _Literally what about this could go wrong,_ his brain sighs. _Just do it do it do it—_

He clutches the letter in his fingers, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

“Do you want to go up to the observatory?” Lance asks suddenly.

Keith tries not to just—die. He manages to close his mouth after floundering for a moment, his heart thudding in his chest from the abrupt change in direction. “Uh—sure. Yeah, that’s—yeah.”

Lance smiles at him, and then his hand slips out of Keith’s and he stands to toss the blanket onto the couch. Keith puffs his cheeks and lets out a silent breath when he’s not looking before climbing to his feet.

 _Whatever, no big deal,_ he thinks. _You can still do it in the observatory. This just gives you more time. Everything’s fine._

They figure out how to put the fire out without somehow ironically burning the cabin down in the process, and then Lance unplugs the tree lights and Keith follows him all the way up the steps to the third floor. The feeling of climbing the ladder into the observatory is almost automatic at this point because they’ve done it so many times, but it doesn’t do much to quell Keith’s nerves.

Lance collects their setup of blankets and pillows scattered across the floor while Keith opens the dome to reveal the sea of stars glittering in the sky. He stares up at them for a moment before turning to join Lance where he’s settled on the floor, legs crossed and hands tucked in the pocket of his hoodie.

Keith takes his time making himself comfortable, forcing himself to sit so that he’s facing Lance. He’s not about to let himself back out of anything this time. And if weren’t already nervous enough, Lance seems—fidgety, all of a sudden. Like he’s uncomfortable, or upset, or—something. Keith clears his throat. “Are you okay?”

Lance starts a little and looks up, blinking like he’d somehow already forgotten Keith was there with him. “Hm? Oh—yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I’m just—thinking about… stuff.”

“Oh.” Keith tries not to overanalyze that statement. “What kind of stuff?” he asks.

“Um.” Lance huffs a small laugh, and his gaze flicks down momentarily before coming back. “You, mostly.”

Keith freezes, and there’s a split second of panic that follows because that—Keith essentially says those exact words in his letter, but—and then he forces himself to relax, because when his hand slips into his pocket he finds that the letter is still there, and there’s no way that Lance could have somehow managed to read it. “Oh,” he says again, quietly.

And suddenly he’s wondering if that means Lance—possibly, maybe—feels the same? That maybe this is absolutely worth the risk, even if there’s only the smallest, _slightest_ chance that Lance reciprocates— _this._ Yet there’s a part of him that realizes it doesn’t matter either way.

 _Tell him,_ his mind whispers.

Keith steels himself and takes another deep breath. “I have something for you,” he says finally—right at the same time that Lance does.

They stare at each other. Keith blinks. Lance blinks back, and then he bites his lip to suppress a smile and another huff of laughter, and Keith finds himself unable to hold back his own smile and a small breath of relief.

“Okay, uh—” Lance’s eyes fall to the floor again and he lets out an airy laugh, looking a bit flustered. “Can I go first? Cuz if I wait any longer I’m pretty sure I’ll pass out from the nerves.”

Keith tucks the letter further into his pocket. “Okay.”

Lance shifts a little in his place, hands twisting in the hoodie pocket. “So, um. Spoiler alert, I don’t have you for the gift exchange, but.” He hesitates. “Close your eyes first.” Keith obediently closes his eyes. There’s a bit of shuffling, and then Lance tells him to open them again and when he does, he looks down to see a small, silver box sitting in front of him. Lance shifts a little more. “That’s for you.”

Keith stares down at the box. “What is it?”

“You’re supposed to open it up and find out, dummy,” Lance snorts, and Keith rolls his eyes but he obligingly reaches for it.

He’s very aware of Lance’s eyes on him as he takes it in one hand and carefully pulls off the top and sets it aside to reveal a small, dark seashell. But upon closer inspection, he realizes that it’s strung along a thin, silver chain bunched carefully underneath. Even in what minimal starlight reaches where they’re sitting, the shell gleams almost like obsidian when he tilts it, and the surface is smooth and polished where Keith delicately brushes over it with a finger. He looks back up at Lance, who’s watching him hopefully.

Keith blinks. “It’s a seashell,” he says lamely.

Lance doesn’t seem to mind, smiling a crooked smile and rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. I brought it from home.”

“Cuba?”

Lance nods, clearing his throat. “Yeah. I found it on the beach a couple of days before we all met at the Garrison to come up here and it just—made me think of you.”

Keith could find some way to tease him about that, most definitely. But right now that’s the last thing on his mind as he continues to stare at Lance, whose eyes dart to the floor while he takes another breath.

“I know that you didn’t always have a home growing up, which was probably really hard and I can’t even imagine what that would be like. And obviously you did find one eventually, and you have one now but I—” He pauses to meet Keith’s gaze again, and there’s something in it that makes him look so sure, and so certain of himself that Keith finds himself frozen in place by it. “I want you to know that you always have a home in Cuba, too. With me. If you ever need it.”

Keith almost reaches for him right then and there. Nearly decides to throw caution to the wind and reach forward and pull Lance toward him and kiss him and say _you’re my home,_ over and over until they don’t even sound like words anymore. He just barely manages to—not.

Lance seems a bit nonplussed by Keith’s apparent lack of response. “So… do you like it?” he asks tentatively.

 _I love you,_ Keith thinks. “Will you help me put it on?” he asks instead.

A look of relief flickers over Lance’s face and he smiles, taking the box from Keith’s outstretched hand and carefully depositing the necklace into his palm as Keith gathers his hair to hold it out of the way. He can’t help but stare as Lance scoots closer, cocking his head to the side so he can see as he loops the chain around Keith’s neck. Keith lowers his arms when he’s sure his hair is out of the way, keeping his eyes on Lance.

His hair is a little messy, probably from when he shoved the hoodie over his head. He can just barely make out the freckles dusting his face in the starlight, and the familiar curve of his nose, and the way his brow is pinched in concentration and his tongue pokes out of his mouth which Keith would very much like to kiss.

And maybe he gets a little carried away with the whole thinking about kissing Lance thing. Because he suddenly realizes that it’s kind of been a while, plenty of time for Lance to clip the necklace in place even with decent amount of time to allow for some fumbling, and when he finally drags his gaze back up he finds Lance staring back at him. Lance’s hands are still hovering over Keith’s shoulders, not quite holding onto the chain and yet he hasn’t quite let go.

Something’s changed. There’s been a rapid shift in the atmosphere around them, become something so charged it’s almost palpable, and the tension is almost unbearable in a way Keith can’t describe. And Lance is close. Lance is really, really close, and Keith is finding it to be increasingly difficult not to stare at his mouth or, even more, close the distance entirely, but something stops him because—

“Did you not want to kiss me?” he blurts.

The tension breaks. Lance’s eyes widen and he practically jerks away while Keith is trying to resist the urge to slap a hand over his mouth. “Wh—huh?”

“Well—yesterday,” Keith stammers, feeling his face go hot. “In the library, you—”

“No!” Lance squeaks, and Keith feels his heart sink in his chest.

“No?” he repeats weakly.

“What—” Lance squawks a little. “Wait, nonono, I didn’t want—that’s not—” Keith isn’t sure exactly what face he’s making, but he suspects he isn’t hiding his disappointment very well because Lance seems to panic. “Okay, wait. I mean—I didn’t want to but only because—” Evidently he realizes he’s only making it worse, because he lets out a sort of groan and pushes a hand through his hair. “Oh my god. Hold up.”

Keith keeps quiet as Lance seems to collect himself, face burning with embarrassment. Not that he’d even meant to ask in the first place, but he didn’t really expect for Lance to say no quite so readily.

“Alright, listen.” Lance sighs, eyes falling shut as he drops his hand back into his lap. “I didn’t want to kiss you yesterday because I didn’t want—everyone else was there and I didn’t want our first kiss to be forced by some plant that people kiss under for some lame Christmas tradition. Plus—” He fixes his eyes on a point on the floor and bunches the material of his shorts in his hands. “I mean. I didn’t know if you, like. Would’ve been okay with me… kissing you.”

Keith stares at him. “You—what?”

“Look, it’s just—” Lance lets out a sort of frustrated breath. “I get it. I get that this is really new for us and we’re still trying to figure things out, and that’s fine. And I know that we both process things differently, I totally get it, it’s just that sometimes it’s really hard for me to figure out—you.” Keith feels a stab of guilt in his chest, glancing down at the floor at the same time that Lance glances up at him. “I never know exactly what’s okay and what’s not. And I know you tell me not to but that’s why I’m always asking, because I’m scared of crossing a line somewhere and messing this up. I guess what I’m trying to say is—” Keith cautiously looks back up as Lance swallows, voice growing quiet. “I know how I feel about you, Keith. So I’m willing to figure this out with you, I just—can’t do that by myself.”

 _You don’t have to,_ Keith wants to say. _I want to do it with you._

And yet he can’t seem to actually find the words. Typical.

_(I know how I feel about you, Keith.)_

_(Something tells me you already know.)_

_(I know.)_

Until he realizes that he already has them.

Keith pulls out the letter and holds it out.

Lance doesn’t take it immediately. He blinks at it a few times in confusion, gaze flicking back and forth between it and Keith until he realizes he’s supposed to do something with it. “Um…” He cautiously accepts it, keeping his attention on Keith as he does. “What’s this?”

“Why don’t you open it up and find out,” Keith mumbles, and Lance huffs a laugh before obligingly turning the paper over and carefully unfolding it.

Lance’s expression changes almost immediately after he scans the first line, which is when Keith seems to process the fact that this is really happening. His muscles tense and his heart leaps into his throat and his stomach flips and in a split second of panic he nearly reaches forward to snatch it back, because this such a bad idea, this is so—it’ll be too much, too overwhelming, and he doesn’t want to scare Lance away but he wants him—to fathom, to understand, to _know—_ he wants Lance to know so badly that it freezes him in place, caught in between the fear of rejection and the anticipation of—acceptance.

There’s a part of Keith that wants—desperately—to sit and watch Lance’s entire reaction play out, to see his every look, his every expression—and a part of Keith that wants to revert to the childish impulse of shoving a blanket over his head and hiding there until Lance pulls him out and tells him that it’s all too much or not enough and he just doesn’t know if he can take it.

So he settles for sitting, and staring down at his lap and clutching the shell around his neck and waiting. But it’s hard because Lance—his face is almost blank, and Keith doesn’t know if that’s good or bad and he doesn’t know where he is or what he’s thinking—

_(I hadn’t realized there’s a reason why it feels like everything is just better with you)_

_(I can’t see the color blue without thinking of you)_

_(I’ve never felt about anyone the way that I feel about you.)_

And there’s a point—where the anticipation of it all is so much that Keith thinks he might throw up or pass out but he manages to breathe through it, and shoot another cautious look at Lance despite every muscle in his body willing him not to look to protect him from the possible disappointment, and Lance—might be done, Keith can’t tell, doesn’t know what to do, because if he waits much longer for Lance to move or say anything he might—

Lance looks up at him, and Keith is struck again by how blue his eyes are, with flecks of starlight and an unnamed hue of color—

“You wrote this?” he whispers.

Keith unconsciously tightens his grip on his necklace. “Yeah,” he says quietly. Lance just blinks at him, face still almost completely unreadable, and Keith suddenly feels the need to explain himself. “I started it the night we got back from the party,” he stumbles on in a rush. “And I—worked on it all week and spent all of yesterday trying to give it to you, but I was—just—um—” And then he falters, because suddenly—oh. Suddenly Lance is—close. Closer than before, and then his— _oh—_ his hand is cupping the back of Keith’s neck, and Keith feels like he might choke on his heart, it’s so far up his throat.  

Lance takes a breath, and when he speaks his voice is so— _wrecked,_ comes out in a tight, shaky sound: “Can I kiss you?”

 _Yes,_ Keith’s mind whispers—screams. _Yesyesyes, please kiss me please kiss me I need to kiss you—_

“W—wait,” Keith stammers, pressing a hand against Lance’s chest and staring openly at Lance’s mouth and being this close to him is _really_ starting to do things to his brain. “Wait, I—I still have to tell you something, and—you don’t have to say it back.”

Lance’s breath is warm where Keith can feel it on his skin, and it’s burning and Keith thinks if he comes any closer he will burst into flames. “Okay,” he breathes.

“I—” Keith’s own breath catches, and his heart is racing and _thud thud thudding_ so loud there’s no way that Lance doesn’t hear it. He swallows down the lump in his throat and forces himself to meet Lance’s gaze, so full of longing and want and Keith is drowning in it. “I love you.”

Lance kisses him.

The first thing Keith thinks when Lance’s lips meet his, is _oh my god, I’m kissing Lance._ And then his brain essentially ceases to function and he isn’t able to think much after that.

It’s so much. It’s so—Lance has Keith by the back of his neck, and another on the side of his face and fingers tangled in his hair, and Keith is clutching to the front of Lance’s hoodie and desperately trying not to fall apart at the sheer prospect that _he is kissing Lance. Lance is kissing him—_ and Lance’s mouth is so soft and so warm against his, and it’s over too soon, before it even begins. Then they break apart _,_ and Keith’s head is spinning and his skin is tingling and he’s struggling to take in a proper breath, because Lance just _kissed him—_

From the way Lance’s breath stutters against his lips, Keith thinks distantly that he might be having the same problem. He brings his hand from the back of his neck to the other side of Keith’s face, and tilts forward to press their foreheads together, and closes his eyes with a shaky sigh. “I love you too,” he whispers, and then leans down and kisses him again.

It’s so much, but it’s so— _perfect,_ and Keith feels like he could just sink into Lance’s arms, into the floor, into oblivion because of it. Lance’s lashes flutter against Keith’s cheeks, and his hands are warm and steadying on his jaw and Keith has never understood what people meant by melting into a kiss until now. Because Lance presses his lips to the corner of his mouth and Keith chases it, pulling him in closerclosercloser—

Lance starts giggling, has the audacity to start laughing into Keith’s mouth and it vibrates so pleasantly in Keith’s chest, yet as wonderfully endearing as it is, they’re kind of in the middle of something and Lance is kind of interrupting it.

Keith makes a small noise of complaint in the back of his throat, fingers still twisted in the fabric of Lance’s hoodie. “What?”

Lance is smiling against him, breath tickling Keith’s skin and fanning across his lips. “Merry Christmas.”

“Shut up,” Keith mutters, and then he pulls Lance in by the strings of his hoodie and Lance’s giggles are swallowed by Keith’s mouth on his.

And Keith just—has this sudden need to be _closer,_ to be as close as is physically possible. Lance seems to feel the same way, because Keith shifts forward and Lance follows his movements, looping his arms around his waist as Keith climbs into his lap and takes his face in his hands and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him until he’s dizzy with the feeling.

Maybe if he took the time, he’d be able to wax poetic about this moment, about how there’s probably something metaphorical about kissing the person he loves—who loves _him—_ under the stars on Christmas morning. Only he’s a little preoccupied, and his mind is too dazed and scattered to put together anything that could be considered a coherent thought.

But they do have to come up for breath eventually, at which point they break apart and Keith can feel himself taking in air but he still feels breathless. Lance opens his eyes after a long moment, cheeks flushed and pink and he smiles up at Keith and makes him lose his breath all over again.

“Too much?” he murmurs, and from the gleam in his eyes Keith is certain that Lance knows exactly how he’s going to respond.

“Not enough,” he mumbles, and leans down to kiss him again.

December twenty-fifth.

The day that Keith falls in love with falling in love.

Christmas Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so fun fact while lance and allura were building their snowman i almost added a scene where lance and keith also make a snowman to look like slav and shiro locks them out of the cabin
> 
> edited: [here is the requested deleted scene haha](https://taxashi.tumblr.com/post/183300328868/deleted-scene-from-klancemas-part-24)


	2. everything i wish i'd told you sooner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> as promised: keith's letter to lance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally posted on tumblr ♡

_ Hi, Lance.  _

_ So. I’m writing you this letter, because—well, long story short, Adam says that I’m terrible at talking about my feelings. And as much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. Which is really annoying, but that’s not the reason that I hate it.  _

_ I’m pretty sure this particular letter is around my fourth try. Fifth? I don’t remember, but you get the point. I’ve just been thinking a lot. About you, mostly. But also about what you said to me, that night you asked me to dance at the party. You told me that you had liked me for a really long time and that you wish you’d had the guts to tell me sooner.  _

_ You also told me that you didn’t expect me to say it back. _

_ That’s been really bothering me lately. Not because of you, just myself. Because the fact of the matter is, I really did want to say it back. I wanted to say it back so badly, I’ve been wanting to tell you now for who knows how long without even knowing that I wanted to, but something always stopped me and I think it’s because I’m still trying to find the words to explain exactly what you are to me. _

_ So yeah, I’m terrible at talking about my feelings, and I hate it. I hate it and I wish I was better at it because I wish I could tell you how I feel about you in real time instead of in a stupid letter. I wish I could tell you the things I think about you without being scared that it’s too much, and I wish I could tell you why I’m crazy about you because you deserve to know. _

_ And you’re not the only one who lied. I lied to you the night that I took you up to the observatory for the first time. I said I needed to tell you something, and then I told you that Adam was the one who showed me the observatory, which is true but definitely not what I actually needed to tell you. That was the night that I was supposed to tell you that I liked you. You had said something about how you never get tired of the stars, about how they’re beautiful and how you only seem to like them more now that we’ve seen them up close and personal. And all I could think about was how that’s how I feel about you. Like you’re the stars. So I looked at you, and I just—couldn’t say it. So I didn’t. _

_ I think, in a way, I’m glad that it took us this long. I don’t know how I would have reacted if you had told me you liked me that first night out in the snow, because I still hadn’t realized there’s a reason why it feels like everything is just better with you.  _

_ The thing is, I’ve been left behind by so many people that at some point I realized, I can’t be left behind if I leave first. And, I can’t get hurt if I don’t get attached. My mom left, my dad died, Shiro left for Kerberos and then I left Adam because I figured he would be next. So I was alone for a really long time, and I was fine with that. I didn’t have to worry about anyone, and I didn’t have to worry about anyone worrying about me.  _

_ Then space happened. And yeah, we got off to a pretty rough start because for some reason you decided to make me your ultimate rival and had this weird fixation on my hair and made absolutely everything into a competition. Which was really annoying and incredibly exhausting and borderline infuriating until it wasn’t.  _

_ Because at some point it just got to be comfortable, and familiar in a way I wasn’t used to. I wasn’t used to attention, in general, which you gave me plenty of even if it was mostly to make fun of my hair. So at first I was fine being the lone wolf of the group, or whatever it was Pidge called me, because that’s how I’d learned to cope. Only then you had to go and be—you, and I went from wanting to be alone all the time to wanting to be with you, all the time.  _

_ I’ve never felt about anyone the way that I feel about you. And I think that’s why it took me so long, because this is totally and completely new to me so I didn’t know what it was, but that doesn’t change the fact that those feelings were there almost since the beginning. I hadn’t realized yet that there’s a reason why it feels like everything is just better with you. _

_ I kind of already told you this, but I finally realized it the day that we pranked Adam and ended up having to put all the Christmas lights up on the cabin by ourselves the next morning. You had just plugged in the lights, and you were smiling and you just looked so happy and it made  _ me  _ happy. And then it was like—I just couldn’t stop looking at you.  _

_ Because you have this thing. And no, that is not a reference to that One Direction song that I definitely do not know all the words to. What I’m trying to say is, there’s something about you that makes you impossible to miss. I haven’t been able to pinpoint what that is yet, but maybe that’s just because it’s absolutely everything about you.  _

_ Shiro says that liking someone is a process, and that eventually you start to like the little things about a person just because they’re the things that make them  _ them.  _ Now that I’m writing it down it makes zero sense and Shiro is the worst at advice but I also can’t complain, because I know what he means? _

_ I said earlier that I wish I could tell you how I feel about you in real time. I’m still working on that, because it’s hard to tell you things when I feel like I can’t breathe everytime I see you. So to make up for that, I’m going to tell you those things right now. Things like:  _

_ I think my heart stops every time you so much as look in my direction _

_ I like taking you to look at the stars because I like to look at you _

_ I can’t see the color blue without thinking of you _

_ Your smile is like the feeling you get when the sun comes out from behind the clouds and brightens the room with soft summer sunlight, and when it’s gone you can’t help but miss it and wait for it to come back again _

_ You have pretty blue eyes and sun-kissed skin and wind-swept hair and a crooked smile and freckles that I like to trace into constellations _

_ I can’t say no to you because I would do anything for you if it means you’ll be happy _

_ You’re bright, and beautiful, and perfect and everything that I’m not. _

_ I wish I’d had the guts to tell you sooner.  _

_ But eventually, I realized why I never could. I realized what was always stopping me, and I realized why “I like you” just never seemed like enough. _

_ The night we went up to the observatory again after you held my hand for the first time was when I really figured it out. You didn’t even do anything, all you did was smile at me but then all of a sudden it just made so much sense. And it felt so right, but it was also terrifying because it didn’t seem possible that so much could change so fast. Adam says it’s because I didn’t have time to process my feelings while we were in space, so they’re all just catching up to me now. Maybe he’s right. Maybe it doesn’t matter.  _

_ All I know is that I know.  _

_ So I just have one more thing to tell you—in real time. _

_ K _

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.taxashi.tumblr.com)!  
> 


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